The Real Franchise – Ep4 – Meet the team Mel & Graham

 

Rhiannon – Hello, everybody, and welcome to a very casual chit chat with some of our, more recent team members to our James family, Mel and Graham, operators of our interior cleaning business in green Bank in Brisbane, in Queensland. And they’ve been on board for around. Well, I might already be tested around 8 to 10 months. Yeah. That right. Fantastic. Fantastic. And look, today all we’re going to do is just have a bit of a general conversation. There is nothing polished, nothing pre-planned to this chat. It really is just to get to know milligram a little bit more.

 

We would like to know a little bit more about their journey to James and their journey in James in the last eight months. What’s it been like? And really the context for this video is that last month we had almost 450 people to make an inquiry to join the James Network. That is an enormous number of people who are out there researching us right now and looking for more information on what it is that we offer. And there’s no better way to share what it is that we’re about and what it’s like to be a business owner in James than actually to get it straight from people who are doing it. There’s no point giving you the sales pitch, because actually we know that what you’re really looking for is just some real information about what it’s like.

 

So that’s what this video is designed to be, just some real information about what it’s like to be a business owner in the James network.

 

So Mel and Graham, I’m going to start off really, really simple. And a super basic question. I really just want to know a little bit more about what your professional or career or job background was before coming into James, because some people think that you’ve got to have experience in running a business or experiencing cleaning, and that’s not the case for you guys.

 

What was your background?

 

Graham – I was in the aviation industry for just over ten and a half years before I started with a New Zealand I with James and yeah. So I had no experience at all in cleaning until now. And, yeah. So that’s basically where I came from. Where’s that? Yep.

 

Mel – And for me, I actually came from almost 15 years in the corporate world, and recruitment. I think it obviously it was a really great career. It was rewarding. but it was long hours. It required, I guess a lot of mental capacity because it was quite a stressful job. There was always a lot of tight deadlines, high volumes of work and so although I enjoyed it, I think I got to a point last year where I felt that I needed something different.

I didn’t want to continue living my life in those long days. No time with my children. By the time I would, you know, leave the house early in the morning. It was about time I got home in the evening. It was dark, so I had very little time with my kids. and I was just looking for something else. And when you’ve done something for so long, it’s really hard to make a change in your career without feeling like you’re starting right back at the very, very beginning. And then often for many people, that also means that you’re going right back to the start of from an income perspective, you’re literally going right back to almost minimum wage.

 

If you start in a in a role that you have no experience in. And so it was quite scary to think, I want to change. I definitely want something different, but what are the options that are available to me that would allow me to do that without having to take a significant, you know, reduction in income. And I think that’s sort of what led us to start thinking about the opportunity with James.

 

Rhiannon – Yeah. Wow. So completely different backgrounds to what you’re both doing now. That’s absolutely fascinating. do you know what I’m I’m keen to know what kind of conversations were happening in your house. How did you both realize that you wanted a change? You know, where where are you? Where you miserable in your jobs? Or did you just kind of know it was it was time to do something different?

 

Like, did one of you broach that first with the other, like, whoa, no, we don’t do change over here. Like, how did that come up?

 

Mel – Yeah. Good question. I think it I think it probably had started a little while prior to that because we’ve made the decision. We both we’ve lived in New Zealand. Well, I’ve lived in New Zealand my whole life. Graham had lived in New Zealand since he was 16 years old. and we were sort of just in that constant repetitive cycle of, you go to work, you come home, you know, you’ve just done that daily grind. We made the decision to move to Brisbane. So we sold everything, picked up, moved here. and part of it was for lifestyle change.

 

We wanted something different for our life and for our children. and then I think once we got here and we took the time, we obviously came into Australia, like, brought my job over with me. So I was quite fortunate to be able to work remotely from here. Graham, on the other hand, he had to apply for a new role within aviation airport operations. So he did do that. but then shortly after we realized it was almost the same thing, different day, you know, you know, that that good old saying, it’s like you make this big change. We moved countries, but then it did start to feel like it was just the same thing, different day. And Graham was back to working.

 

Rotating roster shift work, super early starts, late finishes, working every weekend, every public holiday. So we started to feel like we’re not really getting the lifestyle change that we wanted and that we’d hoped for.

 

Graham – I have never done Monday to Friday, work, you know, so I’ve always done a shift rotation and stick to it ever since I’ve started week. So for me, it’s just that that there was it, you know, just, finding something different. And also, you know, the kids are growing up and with, you know, sports and stuff like that. I want to start getting involved in it. so when we came over here, we were looking at that, you know, type of job where I can just do a Monday to Friday normal working hours and then, yeah, that’s when we got it introduced to James by Deborah & Colin our friends and thats kind of yeah, that’s when it went rolling.

 

Rhiannon – Yeah. It’s so hard isn’t it. I mean I remember when I was at the very beginning of my career in my working life and you know when you’re right at the beginning of it, you know, you stack shelves in a supermarket or you know, your checkout shake or you’re a barista in a cafe. And I was doing those kinds of jobs. That’s where you get your start. I was doing those. And, you know, you you really do expect in that sort of situation to be working long hours and weekends, particularly in your school holidays. You know, I had a fair bit of I had a fair bit of motivation to try and earn some money and be putting away money for a car and a house and things that I wanted in life. And so, you know, I took on those long hours and those, you know, the, the, the late nights and the early mornings and the, the weekends. And, you know, I work at the local cafe during the day, and then I’d literally walk across the road and start my second job at the pub at 6:00 at night, and I do a second shift at the pub, you know, but as you, you know, and and when you’re young, you can be really selfish like that, you know, it’s just you and and in fact, I was still living at home with my parents. I was 17, 18, finishing off school while I was doing the software, second year of university. So I was living at home with my parents still. And you know, you can be really selfish because you have the absolute luxury of, you know, rocking up at home and beautiful mum, she’s made dinner and she’s left me some, and all I have to do is raid it in the microwave and I’m good to go. And then I can just crash out and wake up again at 5 a.m. and and keep going. But when you have, you know, a husband or wife or a partner and you have a family, you have commitments that just aren’t allow you to be that free with your time. You know, you have other things that also take your priority and and work becomes less of a priority.

You know, it becomes the priority from a financial sense.

 

But I think you reach a point in life where you realize that, you know, money security is excellent, but actual freedom is is actually time. Well, having time and having flexibility on your hands. And we hear, so, so often, you know, in our first chat with people when they make an inquiry, we say, you know what?

 

What’s led you here? You know, so often it is this playing out over and over again. I it’s that we are just passing ships in the night. You know, we want to actually spend time with the person that we married. And if we were going to start a business together to be able to do that, then that’s what we’re looking at. It’s this same story.

 

So, so often. And kudos to you guys because it takes it takes guts to pick up and move your life and your family to another country. My hat is off entirely. I, I know I wouldn’t have the courage to do that. There’s no way in the world I would ever have the the courage to pick up and move, move to another country.

 

I, just in awe of anybody who can do that. So, I mean, if we’re going to talk about characteristics it takes to start a business and be successful, it’s grit and determination, and you guys have got that in spades. If you can pick up your family and move country.

 

So when you decided to sort of start looking at other opportunities was let’s start a business together, an obvious choice, or was it that connection with friends of yours that introduced you to James that made the difference?

 

Was there other things you were considering? What what was that kind of journey of discovery from? We need an actual change to okay, let’s look at a business. 

 

Mel – I think that that was the process to be honest. And it wasn’t something that we took on lightly. It took us months to really go through all of the motions of thinking things through.

 

I mean, as anyone would be able to, you know, kind of resonate with it’s there’s a huge amount of risk that you take when you make these big decisions. And so you naturally go into that thought process of that, that what if it doesn’t work? What if we fail? What if this what effect? But I think at the end of the day, you know, we it ultimately came down to Graham could leave it for operations.

 

But the it was coming down to. But what else would he do given that his experience in the last ten, 12 years has been in that industry, it meant that he would go, yes, he could go and work for different airline, or he could go and work in a slightly different role, but it would all still be within the industry and it would still mean shift work.

So really, we weren’t changing much. for me it was the same thing. I could go into a different role, different company. probably had some things that might align a little bit better to my current situation, but again, it would bring me back to still doing the same thing. and I think we’ve just reached that point where we knew we sort of felt if we don’t sort of just put our big pants on and decide that we’re going to actually make a significant change, we’re not going to really reap the reward of that.

 

So I think it it came down to making that decision to say, if we, you know, if we don’t take a big risk, then the reward won’t come. and so yes, we did we did have we’ve got very close friends that, have been within the James franchise for a number of years. and so there was obviously a little bit of influence there in regards to we are very aware of their journey.

We’re aware of their successes, that they’ve achieved in the business. And so I think it was also living proof that, well, hey, if they can do it, I’m sure we can do it too. And so this was a little bit of that. but it didn’t come with, it didn’t make the decision any easier. By no means, because although we’ve seen our friends do it, there’s still that part of you thinks, but this is still our life.

 

This is still our finances. This is our family. And if it didn’t work, these are the consequences that we would have to then, face. So we still had to go through all of those kind of thought processes and I think I’m the last person. So I literally sit there and I wrote pros and cons and pros and cons, and Graham probably got sick of hearing me, but hearing from me because I kept thinking, okay, but what about this? And what about this? And but it was natural. And every time I spoke to my friends, they said, it’s normal that you’re doing that, because if you didn’t do that, we’d probably be more concerned that you weren’t really thinking it through thoroughly. we didn’t think about other franchise options, because personally, for us, we had that connection to James through our friends.

 

So we sort of thought, well, if we’re going to make the jump, it’ll be James. So from that perspective, no, we didn’t sort of compare, a whole lot of other franchise opportunities with this one. We just felt that we knew that it worked. We’d seen our friends make it work.

Justin, with all of our conversations that we’d had with Justin, we’d felt that he’d just been really open, honest, transparent. He’d answered all our questions. So we felt quite at ease from that perspective, that we had all of the information that we needed in order to make the decision. It was it ultimately just came back to us to go, okay, let’s take a deep breath now, are we ready to make this decision and are we going all in?

It was big for us because we’re a married couple. So this wasn’t just one person going into this business, and the other person stayed in a secure job. We were both making the decision to leap at the same time, and that was quite nerve wracking because it was we’re both leaving incomes that are pretty much guaranteed. We know we’re going to get paid next week, next month.

 

Coming into this, it was sort of, wow, okay, we have to make this work. And I think coming back to what you said about grit and determination, I think when the stakes are large enough, you don’t have any other choice but to make it work. We knew going into this, it was like when we moved from New Zealand to Australia, we sold our home.

 

We knew when we came to Australia we’re not going back. We, you know, you invest too much to come over here and you put too much on the line. You don’t come for six months and go, I don’t like it. I’m going back to New Zealand. It’s not an it’s not an option. We’ve committed to it and we follow through. The same goes with this. We both took the lead. We decided it was what we wanted to do and through the hard times, we did have to keep reminding ourselves of why we’re doing this. and no matter what, you can’t give up. You just have to keep going because you put too much into it to walk away.

 

Rhiannon – Yeah. So, yeah, a decision like starting your own business, it’s not. You can’t. You just can’t dip your toe in the water. You know, if that water is a bit cold, you got it. You know, once you’re in, you’re in. And so you really do have to. I love that you say it took you months to make the decision.

 

I think that is a really realistic message for anybody listening or watching this chat. Is that it is completely normal to take months to make this decision. And and it should take you time because it is a huge decision. It’s one of the biggest you making your life, you know, you get married, you have a family, you buy a house, you buy a business, or you start a business.

 

It’s probably up there in the top five biggest decisions you’ll ever be faced with a lot. And so it’s not one to be made lightly. Any day when we have individuals going through our information process, making their decision about whether this is right to them, it’s actually a red flag to us. If somebody comes to us and is like, yep, I’m ready to go, like, let’s get this going next week.

We’re like, whoa, whoa, whoa, take a breath. Everybody slow down. We need you to take your time. We need time to educate you about what the what this is about, what the risks are about how hard this is going to be and how much you need to put into this. You need time to absorb all of that and to make the right decision for you.

 

We need time to make sure that we feel we’re the best fit for you and what you’re actually looking to achieve out of the business venture. Everything takes time and somebody, someone who is trying to fast track that process constantly is often not fully cognizant of the risks and probably is a little bit of an optimist in terms of how easy this is going to be. And I think I think you’re mentioning of, you know, through the hard times, we’ve got to remember why we’re doing this.

 

I think you touched on something we should dive into a little bit more, because I don’t want this chat just to be all fluff and rainbows and, you know, yes, it was a big decision, you know? But but I’ve got two questions, actually.

 

I want to start with one. Was there a specific moment where you had made that decision where you knew, like how did that actually happen? Was it in a conversation? And you were like, okay, let’s do this, or did it happen like over time? Or was it like one of you was just like like, come on, we’ve been thinking about this for months.

Let’s jump. How did that actually happen? What was your moment that decision was made?

 

Graham – It was me that was, planning to get into the business. so I was actually thinking of either doing the exterior wash.  Well, Colin was the one that told me, you know, get into lawn mowing.  Then I thought, okay, maybe I’ll do that. At that same time, her job was her contract was coming to an end.

 

Mel – So there was a number of things that we that sort of all happened around the same time.

 

Graham – But when that was coming to an end, that’s where we thought, oh, okay, well why don’t we just go into this together? Let’s do it together. You know? And then that’s what we changed from then to maybe we’ll do interior training together. Yeah. She doesn’t want to do lawn mowing.

 

Mel – No, not since Australia has snakes. I wouldn’t have minded, you know, but snakes are a different story!

 

Graham – Yeah. So that’s how it all kind of came about.

 

Mel – And then, you know, we start talking to Justin about it as well. And if he was getting a few conversations with Justin actually that sort of went round and round because where we started the conversation initially was around Graham going into the other, and then I would continue in my role so that we still had that financial backing.

 

But then obviously over the course of the conversations, things shifted and moved and ultimately we ended up I think it was yeah, Graham wanted to get out of shift work so that we knew that. So I think that was probably the moment that we knew.

 

Graham – And, it was like she kind of had enough of that job as well, you know? So rather than looking for something else, why don’t we just go into it together and start, you know, go in together?

 

Mel – Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And then the interior cleaning, I think. Yeah. When we looked at the different service offering, I think it makes sense if we’re going to work together, perhaps the interior cleaning, although first Graham’s like, but I don’t clean very well.

 

Rhiannon – It’s actually quite physical, isn’t it? It’s a really manual job. 

 

Mel – Yeah. Yeah. You particularly if you’re doing the bond cleans or an office clean sometimes you need some muscles in there on the job. Yeah, you definitely do. But no, it’s yeah I think for us we, we thought we thought through a lot of things in a lot of different scenarios. We spoke to a lot of people. And I think for us taking the leap and coming into the business, we wanted something that we felt would be really sustainable. and although all the service offerings that are available are a great, we just personally felt we would start with interior cleaning because we felt that we could do it together.

 

We wouldn’t get called off due to weather. So that was a big thing for us too, because we were so obviously with both of us giving up our incomes, we needed to know that no matter what, we’d be able to make money every single week. With the interior cleaning, the advantage of that option was that it’s unlikely unless someone’s really sick and you can’t go into their home most of the time, you can still go ahead and clean with the people at home or not.

 

Or, you know, it didn’t matter what the weather was doing. and so that was a huge part of our decision making was it looks like this could be a really sustainable business, but also you’re more likely to have repeat business weekly, fortnightly. So from an income generating perspective goes for some of the things that we looked at, which kind of lead us down that path of going, okay, we’re doing this, let’s do it together.

 

Graham – I think it also kind of helps with the decision as well as the how you do the subscription model. Yeah, I mean we, we did have the money to just to pay it off. Right, but we thought now we’ll, you know, it’s nice like this to it kind of working on the money and then you kind of paying for it, you know, it’s paying for it itself, you know. which allowed us to sort of keep that aspect of if we need.

 

Rhiannon – And that makes a lot of sense. And that’s so much of the reason why we did it. we actually did it because, traditionally in franchising, it’s the franchisee that puts the money on the table. Right? And they take the risk. Nice to say, here’s my 20, 30, 40, 50, 2 million on the table. I’m buying a business in your network, and I’m accepting all of the risk as the franchisee.

 

I think society has changed. Expectations have changed. And frankly, I think franchising kind of hasn’t kept up with that as well as it could have. And part of the reason why we introduced a subscription model is that Justin and I felt we should really flip the tables and turn it around, and if we wanted to genuinely build a partnership with our franchisees and work in tandem and genuinely support them to build sustainable businesses like you guys have mentioned, that was one of the cool things you were looking for, something that was going to be sustainable.

 

Then we’ve got to take a whole heap of risk as well, I think. And so we thought, well, let’s, let’s completely change that dynamic. And instead of saying, hey, franchisee, you give us all your money, we’ll train you, will teach you, will support you. But the risk is all yours. Instead of that, we thought, let’s flip it and let’s us put the money upfront to start the business.

 

And then we’ve got more of an even playing field, you know, then we’ve got, you know, then we can say we’re investing in you. We actually believe through our information process, we’ve collected enough data and information about you that we genuinely think you’re going to make a great business owner in our network. We believe in you. So that’s why we’re offering you a franchise business in our network. And also we’re prepared to invest in getting your business started. And then we can work together on actually building that. And we just felt like that was a paradigm shift that this industry needed.

 

So, Graeme, I’ve got a I’ve got a quick question for you, I that I’m dying to know. What was it like handing in your resignation after a decade or so in the one industry, working all of those long hours, you know, to work in the dark, home in the dark, no time for family, no kids, not great, flexible.

What was it like heading in that resignation after all those years?

 

Graham – I didn’t know what to do with myself. I felt a bit lost. Sometimes I’d wake up early in the morning think  What’s the time, you know. Should I be up and getting ready? I did a yeah, I did miss it because I was with Air New Zealand for ten, ten and a half years with Air New Zealand and, you know, just love staff travel. That’s what I miss a lot about it. We get really great staff discount!

 

So when we moved here, I came started with Air New Zealand after Virgin Australia. Just didn’t feel the same anymore kind of thing.  So from there that, you know, some mornings I wake up and I go, you know, when am I getting up at 2:00 in the morning to, you know, just to be there for five hours and then I’m back at home, you know, while everyone was still getting up.

 

Mel – You were excited when you were gone though, because he called me and he’s like, I just clocked out of my last shift like you. He was actually really excited to know that he actually didn’t have to go back into that, you just that constant early hours, late finishes.

 

Graham – It was really the. Yeah it was the work life balance. 

 

Rhiannon – You don’t have to hate the job or the industry. I guess that it wasn’t giving you what you needed in your life anymore. No, it wasn’t serving you anymore. And you know, yeah, obviously it felt pretty good to hand that resignation in and to, you know, know that something was coming, however, a bit scary.

And I want to move on to that now.

 

So let’s fast forward right. You’ve you’ve stepped through our information process. You’ve made your big decision. Graham handed in your resignation. Mel, your contract came to an end and you finished up in your recruiting role working ridiculous hours under the pressure pump all the time, deadline after deadline. You know, operating that at that really high level every single day. Just emotional and mental drain. So much in that role you attended and you completed all of your training with us. And then trading Commencement Day rolled around, on a scale of 1 to 10, how what did that feel like from a fear perspective? Were you worried on that first day where you done your trading? And we were like, okay, now, with our support, we don’t just, you know, get rid of you and be like, good luck. Wish you well where, where they every step of the way. But on that first day, what did it feel like?

 

Graham – What have I done!

 

Mel – You know, you were thinking I was going to come and check how well I clean that shower. If you’ve done a good job. No, I think naturally there was certainly fear. Absolutely. You’re going into somebody’s home. And at that point, we didn’t even know these people. They were effectively strangers to us. And you’re going in and they’re trusting you with their home.

 

They’re trusting you with their property within their home. and you just want to do a really good job. And I think that it was just things with going, I need to take what I’ve learned, and I need to obviously complete the job. And I really, really, really just want to make sure that my client is happy and that they feel that we’ve added value, you know, to them.

 

And so those first two, probably those first few weeks that we were booking jobs, I felt like a bit of a manic because I would go through our list of equipment and what we needed, and I would go through it like probably five times in my head to make sure, have we got everything that we need? Is it packed Have we loaded it into the car? Have we make sure we haven’t forgotten anything? have I got the. You know, the client’s address information? Have I got the phone number? You know, just all the things that you want to make sure you get right. It it comes back to just good old business. 101. and we also took longer in those, those first few weeks of actually doing the actual job.

 

You quote it based on what you sort of feel is appropriate and based off recommendations of what everyone else in the business sort of says that you should charge. And then there were times, absolutely, that we would go and we’d be there for half an hour, sometimes even an hour longer than what we had anticipated. And you kind of beat yourself up a little bit because you think, oh, we need to be faster than this, you know, you know, the the client isn’t expecting us to be here this long, or if it takes us this long, we’re not going to make any money. And so you’ve got all these things that do roll through your head. but then I think the biggest thing, and this is where obviously all the support we had within James was amazing because every person we spoke to, they just said, be kind to yourself. You’re learning, you know, you haven’t cleaned before. These things take time. You will walk into that same house in a few weeks time and you will was around and you will get it down and you’ll walk out and you will feel like it was just water off a duck’s back. And it is true, because we’re at that point now. I mean, we were only eight, nine months, sort of, you know, down the track, but because we had a lot of regular and repeat business, we walk into these homes now and we know exactly what we’re doing. We know exactly how long it’s going to take. We know what our client expects of us. You know, and it’s just you almost don’t even think twice about it. You sort of know that you’re very capable. and so you get that confidence back because I think in the very beginning, we, we were very out of our depth. you know, I’ve always cleaned my own home. I’ve always had high expectations that my own home is presentable.

But when you’re doing it for somebody else and they are paying for that service, it does add a whole new level of pressure in the sense that this is not just my home. I can’t, you know, I have to do this really well, and I have to ensure that it’s done well and my client’s eyes as well. and so we’ve certainly learned things along the way. We’ve learned how we become more efficient. We’ve just. Yeah. And some of it can be a little bit of trial and error, but you kind of get there, but you just have to trust yourself and know that there’s lots of help and support along the way as well. But yeah, definitely comes with fear and fear in a bit of anxiety.

 

Rhiannon – Oh yeah. There’s and that’s normal. It’s so normal at it would be worrying if you jumped into day one and had no fear whatsoever. I’ll always remember, I read a quote ages ago, like probably 20 years ago, I was I would have only been in my early teens and it was something to do with, butterflies are good and feeling fear and feeling nerves is good.

 

It’s a sign you care about the outcome, because if you don’t feel nervous, you don’t care what’s about to happen, you know? So feeling nervous going into someone’s home, you know, whenever I deliver the eight steps training, I spend so much time talking about what a privilege it is to be invited as a service provider into somebody’s home.

 

It’s an absolute privilege. If somebody’s private space, it’s their personal space. It’s their safe space. It’s their family’s safe space. It is the utmost privilege to be invited into somebody’s home to deliver a service that supports them, living the lifestyle that they would like to live. But it comes with, you know, nerves and you know, that expectation that you do a really good job.

 

And so what what you’ve expressed is, is, is so normal. Or I would, I would say for most of our new franchisees that exactly what they feel. But the message, the underlying message in your answer is such a beautiful one because it really is, you know, yes, there are a lot of nerves and a bit of fear, a good dose of anxiety at the beginning, but it’s all a learning curve. I and I love that statement about being kind to yourself, because there’s there’s nothing truer in those first few months. You know, you’re you’re in survival mode. You’ve gone from, you know, a really high level professional career and, you know, a decade in an industry, aviation with, you know, lots of rules and lots of parameters and lots of boundaries.

 

And, you know, you’ve got to do things exactly how it needs to be done. You’ve got to follow those procedures, you know. So you’re both used to operating at a really high level. It’s such a change of pace and it’s very clear you both have really high expectation of yourselves. And that’s a that’s a great thing. But it also means that yeah you make one tiny little, you know, misjudgement or error and you beat yourself up about it.

 

But actually it’s only an error or a mistake if you do it a second time or a third time.

 

Otherwise it’s just an opportunity to learn and starting a business is one ginormous opportunity to learn. Is it just from, you know, those first 12 weeks particularly, just an enormous opportunity to learn? There is a lot of support that we provide through James Holmes services.

 

And one of the things that we do that I really think, frankly, it’s a big call, but I’m going to make it frankly, I think we do better than any other. network in our particular sector is that it’s the business coach support we provide. And, you know, it’s not just throw shade on anybody else. You know, everybody provides their own style of support.

 

But the business coaches role in our network is absolutely pivotal to the success of our businesses. And those first 12 weeks are critical.

Would you mind just talking a little bit about what working with your business coach has been like, and have you found the value in that relationship? that I’ve just been speaking about, is is that true for you, that it has, in fact, been really important?

 

Mel –  Yes, I agree. I think at the end of the day, especially when you’re coming in to something that is completely new, we didn’t know what we don’t know what we don’t know. and so we’ve had Ian and Ian has been. Yeah, a wealth of knowledge for us. He’s been always available. So whenever we’ve had questions we just, you know, call him, send him a text send him an email.

 

Whatever way I communicate with him, I always get a response. And so that’s been really comforting just knowing that there’s an ear at the end of the phone, to help guide us. And if he doesn’t know the answer, he’ll find out. And it’s great because, you know, there are things that sometimes I ask and say, oh, actually, I don’t really know if he’ll go away.

He’ll find out, he’ll come back to me. And so that’s been really instrumental. and I think having that level of support and just knowing that it’s there as well is what gives you a bit of comfort because you kind of know, and I think it brings me back to, I mean, this thing gets thrown around quite a lot, but I think it is quite true.

 

It’s like you’re in business for yourself, but you’re not in business by yourself. And I think that that’s a really big thing because, yeah, okay. It is up to Graham and I if we want to make this work, it’s up to us. We have to put in the effort. but we’re not doing it completely alone. And so there are so many people that have walked this path well before us.

There are people that have, you know, made errors and learned, and understand this practice and all these things. And so it’s just not being afraid to ask. I think that’s the biggest thing is coming into it. But knowing that you need to be inquisitive, you need to ask questions. You need to actually put your hand up when you need help and when you need support. And not be afraid to do that because otherwise it could be quite isolating if you did that. I mean, we work together all day, every day, and that can be quite isolating at times. You know, a lot of our clients are often out, you know, they just we just go in and clean while they are at home. And so you only have your own voice or I can get quite isolating, but it’s quite nice.

But you can reach out to the wider network, to your business coach, etcetera. And have some level of support and guidance along the way. So that has been really, really good. Yeah. and so I’m so pleased to hear that because we really do take a lot of pride in, what we encourage our business coaches to, you know, the resources that we give to them to be able to work with our business owners.

 

Rhiannon – And it’s it’s a real focus for us. You know, I’m often asked, well, what are the growth goals of James Home Services Australia? And, you know, I’ve got to be honest, we’re not we’re not chasing numbers for the sake of numbers where we’re chasing, we are chasing growth. You know, we want this to be a sustainable business. And you know, we have built systems and processes and a platform and a foundation in this business that can handle a lot more business owners utilizing that platform.

 

So we do want growth, but we don’t want it for the wrong reasons. We don’t want to just choke up numbers for the sake of it. We want we want to work with people who are really wonderful to work with and who have, you know, those characteristics, like you guys do, that you know, so many things that you’ve mentioned that I mean, we could talk for hours if I was to actually pick up on all the little things you’re dropping throughout this conversation.

 

We could chat for hours because, you know, you talk about, you know, it’s up to you guys, you know, and taking ownership over the outcomes that you see in your business. And that is hands down the number one indicator as to whether someone’s going to be a success in this network is do they take are they prepared to take ownership over the outcomes in their business?

You know, in the you’re in business for yourself, but never buy yourself another little gem you’ve dropped in there just shamelessly and you’re so right. But also that support just means that you aren’t alone.

How have you found it working with each other? Is this the first time in your relationship that you’ve worked with each other in this capacity?

Every single day, and how have you found it? Is is someone the chatty one? Is someone the chaotic one? Is someone, the organized one? Is someone the fly by the seat of their pants. One how is that? Has it been fun or has it been challenging?

 

Mel – It’s been all of those things have been all of those things. No, we’ve never worked together in this capacity. Like Graham’s always had his own line of work. I’ve had my own line of work, and we would see each other at home. so this has been it has certainly been a learning curve, I guess day to day, though, it works. And the reason it works is that although we are together, once you walk into a home, you just kind of almost take on your own individual role.

 

So the way that we’ve split it, Graham does bathrooms, and sometimes vacuuming depending on time. I naturally take up some of the more sort of intricate tasks. you know, I’ll do all the dusting. I do the kitchen areas, I’ll do most of the time the vacuuming, but, you know, the mopping. and then when we’re doing spring cleans or, you know, larger claims, then we kind of just divvy up who’s, who’s doing what.

 

So although we are together, we’re not literally working together at all times that we will come to home sometimes and we don’t see each other until the job’s done and we’re picking up the car because you’re just in different areas of the home so you kind of almost figure out pretty quickly what each other’s preferences are and where your strengths. So you kind of just kind of take on those roles naturally. On the organizer. So I typically I’m the person I know the schedule and the person that coordinates where we are, at what time. I would say that I just take most of the customer contact, like all of our client interactions, the follow ups,

 

Graham – I just do what I’m told.

 

Rhiannon – So, it sounds like you guys have got a really great strategy. You obviously worked out very early on, and no doubt your background in H.R. Is just, you know, shining through, but, you know, it’s such it’s such a great strategy to figure out what you’re really good at or what you enjoy doing. And you know, work to your own strengths. And if you’re when you’re fortuitous enough to work in a, you know, pair, you’ve got the ability to be able to say, hey, I’m no good at X, can you take that part of the job on it? And it’s such a great strategy to work. You know, you’re not tripping over each other and it sounds like you’ve got this system down. You know, you walk into a house, you both just know what you need to do, where you need to go and what you need to get done.

 

Was it natural that  you fell into that rhythm, or did it take a little while?

 

Mel –  I think there were certain things that naturally just came our way, like I’m naturally the admin person.

So it made sense that I would learn. I mean, yeah, it makes sense that I would learn about obviously, you know, that like, I do the invoicing. Xero. So the system, I mean, it’s really just taking those roles because, I enjoy that stuff anyway and like to have my finger on the pulse in regards to what’s going on with the business. Then Graham has adopted some jobs and would often say that he would put his hand up to say, yes, I want to do that. But from a time perspective, he’s become, at the end of the day, anyone that works in interior cleaning knows that your job’s not done when you get home, you’ve got to unload the car, you’ve got to wash all your cloths. You’ve got to wash, you know, prepare everything for the next day. So Graham comes home and puts on the laundry. That’s like every day that we get home, it’s this guy that’s unloading the car, making sure everything’s washed, dried, hung out, whatever needs to happen. I don’t even have to think twice about that now. He just gets it done and he will let me know when we’re running low on products.

 

So he looks after the inventory, for lack of a better word. He’ll he’ll say, oh, I have all these products and this is what we need more often. We need to order this. so we’ve just it’s taken a bit of time, but we’ve sort of naturally just worked out. There’s no point us both tripping over each other to do the same thing.

 

It’s not a good use of time. So often I’ll come in, I do the invoicing, I do everything in in the system, and then he’ll be out in the garage, unloading the cargo and all things. So we’ve kind of just figured it out. And for the most part, it works. It works.

 

Rhiannon – Graham at this point, you relationship don’t you just read her mind my partner reads my mind. Right? Or at least I expect him to!

 

Mel – I think communication is important, though. I think, you know, we do have to check in with each other, you know, daily just to check how each other’s feeling. And if one person’s not having a great day, you know, Graham has been a bit sick lately and hasn’t been feeling the greatest. And so you do sometimes just have to take on a bit more.

I think it’s taken a bit of time for us just to kind of find our feet and sort of figure some of those things out. But then for a large part, I think we’ve sort of just naturally kind of assumed those roles and figured that if it works, let’s just roll with it.

 

Rhiannon – Yeah, yeah. So a couple of, couple of kind of quickfire questions. Favourite part about running your own business? Least favourite part about running your own business? 

 

Mel – I would say favourite part has been definitely a level of flexibility, and that we’ve found more balance in our lots and more time for other things. but that also goes hand in hand with building the relationships with our clients. Like, we actually are so fortunate. We have some we have lovely clients. And I didn’t think that that was something that I would find all that I’d appreciate. I actually just thought, you come in, you do the job, you leave that up. But actually the people side of it has been really, really lovely. And I’m so grateful that we, you know, that we have those clients. They just amazing.

Least favourtie. I think it would just have to be. You. There’s still naturally that concern. They just talk about income. It’s like, okay, are we doing enough work to generate enough income? How do we grow? Because you are still effectively you work now you get paid an hour.

It’s that same kind of methodology. And so I think it’s sort of feeling like, you know, let’s start to think bigger because we do want to grow. and so this would naturally probably that would be the if I was to put a worse part on it, it would probably just be that natural fear around. Yeah. The income side.

 

Rhiannon – You guys have reached that awkward point. And you know, you’re you’ve built your business and and frankly, you built it quite quickly in the scheme of things. And you built it to a point where you know, you’re almost at capacity, the two of you. And now you’re on that precipice of, well, now we need to grow.

And it’s a chicken or an egg. You know, we don’t have capacity to take on more clients, but we need more clients to have more work in order to take on a team member. And so it’s a really awkward point. And it, it, it’s probably a bit of a defining point for most business owners, you know, and they will talk about the challenge when they get to your point.

And, and people either go one of two ways. They embrace the challenge. They embrace that, you know, uncertainty. And they say, no, I want growth. And I’m committed to it. And absolutely, quite rightly, you said no. You know, you work now. You paid for an hour. And that’s right, until you employ staff. And then that’s where you can find some greater efficiencies of scale and some potential profitability above and beyond what you’re experiencing at the moment.

People either embrace that and take that on that challenge and they they pursue growth, or it forces them to re-evaluate and say, well, actually is what we’re earning just us, you know, are we satisfied with that? And maybe we don’t want, you know, to grow. I say that. So, yeah, it’s a it’s an interesting part. And I’m not surprised that that’s, you know, a part of uncertainty for you.

It’s it’s natural. It’s a pretty it’s an awkward stage, if I’m honest. It’s really awkward.

 

You know, you sort of sit in this. I’m not quite sure we need one, but we can’t do that. It’s. It is. It’s too. Yeah. So.

Graham. So you favourtie part? Least favourtie part.

 

Graham – That’s basically what what she said. favourtie part is what I have to say, you know. Well, that’s the thing. It’s it’s the time that we’ve spent together, you know, we’ve managed to work together. We go together at the same place, and, The hours, you know, you can you can change and move things around to suit.

So that’s the best thing about, you know, working on, you know, and, the least will be the, the unknown and whether we should, grab it by the thing and move, you know, go with it or, you know, just this is enough for us, and we’ll just move slow. And so that’s that’s that’ll be it. And there’s no right or wrong answer.

 

Rhiannon – That is that which is which is part of the challenge. And why it’s so awkward is, is that everybody’s motivated by different things. One of the things that, you know, in a previous conversation that that we’ve had, you know, you’ve mentioned how important your family is and how much of a motivating factor they were in starting this business.

What do your kids think? You know, you’ve, you’ve you’ve moved country. You started your own business. Are you kids are you kids proud of you? Do they see what you’re doing? What do they think?

 

Graham – Oh, yeah. They’re proud. They actually. So yeah, we’ve you know, got our own business. Yeah. And also we, got more time for them. Yeah. That’s the main thing. So yeah. Yeah. Seeing more of you. Yeah. That’s so important because most of the time, I would wake up and they’re like, they’re still sleeping. And then if I’m going to do a double, I come back. They they’ve gone back to bed. So I don’t really see them, you know. Yeah. You don’t you wouldn’t even see the kids at all.

 

Mel – I think one thing that’s probably a big thing for us personally is that this year, our youngest son has, really found a love for League. And so he’s, he’s playing League, and it’s actually almost brought tears to my eyes because I’ve been able to see Graham as a father taking his son to two trainings a week consistently and being at the games every single weekend. Whereas that was something he never did. It was always mean I had to work full time, rush time, get the kids in the car, get them off to training, and all I could do is tell Graham about it. I couldn’t actually involve him because he was always having to work, and because of his work, the rotating nature of his shifts, he couldn’t be sure if he would be rostered on or off to actually commit to anything.

He even helps out at the trainings. You know, he volunteers and helps the coach. And so there’s been all these little things that you don’t even think about. But then when they happen before you, I’ve, I’ve had moments where I’ve gone, wow, okay, we dreamt of this. Like, this is the stuff that makes it all worth it. Because these were the moments that he never had. And now we get to have them and our son, our youngest son is actually nine.

 

So, you know, there’s a lot of missed out. but it’s knowing now that moving forward that this business gives us that opportunity, that he can really be involved now, and he gets the joy of being able to go along and teach his son how to throw the ball and all these things, you know, it’s actually, like, so cool.

 

And now we get family that come to the kids games in the weekends because Graham’s family, you know, he’ll tell his brother and sister, you know, kids go to a game, whatever. And so they all kind of come along because we’re all there as a family watching, you know, the games on the weekends. And that that in itself, you just cannot put a price on that stuff.

 

Graham – It’s it’s yeah, it’s it’s great

 

Rhiannon – How incredible that thank thank you for sharing sharing that. That’s quite personal and I yeah I feel it’s, you know, we worked so hard at head office to support our business owners and we genuinely believe, you know, we go about our role with so much integrity and so much heart and just try and do the absolute best we can by everyone in our network.

And, you know, we we have pretty aspirational kind of goals around the level of support we provide and what that enables. And normally what we would talk about, what it enables, we talk about it from a business success perspective for our business owners. You know what it enables them to achieve in their business turnover. And, you know, the flexibility of time.

 

Sure. But, you know, being able to control your schedule and being able to, you know, perhaps save the deposit for the house or buy that car. That’s your dream car. You know, those are the sorts of things that we look at. But honestly, it’s that so much more than that, isn’t it? You know, and it’s about the stuff you couldn’t you can’t put a price tag on, because if you put a price tag on business success, you can set a goal, you can set a target.

 

And if you work hard and you take ownership over your decisions, then you can get there. You know, there’s no reason why you can’t get there. If you really put your head down and you work hard at it and you know, and you ask questions when you need to, you seek out support and guidance and you really commit and dig deep.

 

You can get to any business goal you set for yourself, but you can’t always script and plan for the little moments that you’ve just talked about. And it’s it’s so grounding for me. It brings me back down to earth, and it reminds me that it’s not always about having the most profitable business, or the biggest business, or the loudest business, or the most well known business, or the business with the most staff. Actually, what’s more important than all of that stuff is, sure, financial security. But actually what’s more important is what you determine to be important. And for you guys, it sounds like those little moments where you’re where you’re little people get to see you and spend more time with you. It sounds like maybe that’s been sort of something that you expected to a degree. But, you know, experiencing those moments now has been incredibly rewarding.

 

Mel – Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And yeah. And even just to bring you back to that question about our kids are even here. Sometimes they even hear our children. Oh, do you guys have a cleaner? My parents are cleaners, but parents could come and clean your house!

Yeah, we’ve heard that come out of our son’s mouth quite a few times.

 

Rhiannon – I asked that question because I remember growing up and going to school, and I remember that, a couple of my friends had parents who owned their own business. And I always just remember, like, looking up to those adults and being like, wow, you know how incredible you are in your own business. That’s incredible. I always remember being so in awe. And, you know, the hilarity of it is that my parents are farmers, which is is owning your own business as well. But I, I never I kind of drew that relationship to my own parents, so I don’t I, I just remember being so inspired by adults who owned their own business. And I just thought, wow, that’s incredible. And so yeah, I wondered if your kids have sort of I wonder if they kind of grasp the magnitude of this decision that you guys have made. And, and I and I hope that as I get even a little bit older that they do well. And, you know, it might not even be anything they ever say to you, but it might just be that, you know, watching you guys take ownership over your business, you know, it’s going to teach them things that they just wouldn’t otherwise have been exposed to.

 

I certainly find that, you know, I, I, I tend to think that I have a great deal of resilience and persistence and determination. And honestly, I think that comes from watching my father struggle as a farmer, you know, against drought and climate change and, you know, the challenges that you face as a business owner, there are always challenges.

But farming, being a cleaning business, there are always challenges that are outside of your control. And I think a lot of my own characteristics in, you know, perseverance and determination have come from just being involved in a world where figuring it out and taking ownership is, is the only way. There’s no one to come and rescue you. You got to sort it out for yourselves.

And, you know, I’ve, I really value now the older I get, I value now the lessons that he taught me without him even knowing. In fact, he would probably be shocked if he ever watched this video, because it’s not actually something I’ve ever admitted to him.

 

So if we if we move toward wrapping up the chat, what? You mentioned I just want to go back, just for a quick little minute before I ask the final question.

 

I just want to go back for a little minute. Mel & Graham. You both spoke about how sort of subtly surprising it has been to you, the value of your client relationships that you have built over the last eight months. And I just obviously, you know, it was something that you expected, but maybe not as soon.

 

What has it been like building those relationships and what value do you get?

 

What sort of what’s your favourtie part about getting to work your own business and having your own clients?

 

Mel – I think it’s just the fact that because in this, the nature of this business, because we’re going into their homes weekly, fortnightly or whatever it might be, there is a level of kind of connection that you you build with them because as a as I said earlier, it’s like there’s a huge amount of trust that they give you to allow you into their home and they talk to you, you get to understand what they do, you know, whether they’re working or not working. you know, you get to know their family, their pets, whatever it might be. You do get to know them, you know, on a really good level. And I think for us, given some of them are almost like friends now, like, they’ll they’ll tell us things, recommend things to us. You know, it’s it’s just nice. And I think it really makes you one. We hugely appreciate them because they are our clients and they are effectively supporting our little local business. And so we’re hugely grateful and appreciative of that. But it’s also just knowing that you’ve got these people that you depending on their circumstances, every single one of them.

 

There’s a way that we feel that we’re truly adding value to their life, that or to the world. We’re giving them time back, etcetera. And so we’ve been really lucky in the sense that these types of jobs that you do, sometimes they can be a bit, you know, thankless. You go in, you can clean a house, you get can you leave. And that’s kind of the end to story. And I think if you leave it, you could allow that type of work to be a bit thankless but in our situation. We understand why our clients want to utilize our service. and when you understand that, you learn and develop a way of connecting with them and knowing what actually matters most to them and how you can deliver that.

 

And so and sometimes in the little with things like even learning, you know, how they might want the flowers displayed on the bench told, or how they want the detail, you know, and things like that. And you learn these things from getting to know them and asking, is there anything you’d like us to do differently next time or what have you? But I think as we’ve come to know them, you just walk out of the actually feeling, you feel a little bit, you know, you feel quite satisfied within yourself that you know, you’ve done what other people might determine as quite mundane tasks. But actually these are things that really help people and give them time back. you know, for a lot of them.

 

Yeah. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just we’ve actually really built up one, client and, kind of old. Every time we go into their house, they just want to talk. Yeah, I think maybe they’ll want us to come and sit and they’ll make us coffee.

 

Rhiannon – Yes, I have heard that from our teams.

 

Mel – Yeah. It’s so lovely. I mean, I mean, instantly it tells you that they absolutely value your company and your friendship, but, it is so important, isn’t it? You know, particularly for our older community who may not have friends or family who visit on a daily basis, or maybe they’re a little less mobile than they once were. And so they can’t necessarily get out and, you know, go to happy hour at the pub or go and see their friends as often as we want it. And so the people who come in to their home to deliver, sometimes what we might think is mundane and basic services, actually it’s a lifeline to them. It’s so much more, you know, instead of clean their home or, tidy their kitchen, you know, they’re for support. Your there for companionship. You you improve their mental health, you know, by by taking time, making a bit of a lot of our franchisees who will, often come into someone’s home, particularly older clients, and will start the service by flicking the kettle on and making the client a cuppa.

 

Rhiannon – Yes. And they’ll prioritize the rooms in the house that they clean so that they can have a chat with the clients while the clients have in the cuppa. And honestly, I mean, you leave and you leave the client with a cleaner home. You also leave the client with a full of heart. You know, you leave the client a little bit lighter in life because I’ve had a chat with someone that you just can’t put the value on that, can you?

 

Mel – It’s so important. No, it’s. Yeah. And I think that’s been the thing that’s probably been quite rewarding that I didn’t expect. I didn’t expect that we would have that level of kind of, you know, connection with the clients. And so it’s been really, really quite refreshing and quite nice to have. And we really value it. So yeah, it’s beautiful.

 

Rhiannon – One last question. The right decision. Yay or nay. And would you repeat it? If you were to go back eight months in time, would you make the same decision again?

 

Mel – Yeah. And as you said, we’re on the cusp at the moment of figuring out we’re in that little awkward spot. And I think, look, we’ve had our moments. We’ve certainly had our moments where we’ve gone, oh gosh, did we do the right thing?

 

Would we have been better off staying in our secured, you know, sort of employment? but I think look, deep down, whenever we’ve had those moments of uncertainty, it has automatically brought us back to the reasons why we’re doing this and the reasons why we’re doing it. 100% would do it all again in a heartbeat, because it is giving us it might take us a while to get there, but we’re slowly making those steps to where we want to be in the future. You know, we’re making it work. We’re making it work. Yeah. And that’s the thing. And we’ve had a whole lot of things happen in our world. And in the past few months, it hasn’t been an easy start to 2024. and it has been hard at times to kind of just put our hat on and go, we’ve got clients, we’ve got business.

We just need to knuckle down and get it done. But on the other hand is that if we didn’t have this business and we didn’t have the level of flexibility that it actually brought. There’s no way that we would have been able to be with our family in the times of need. and so I think we can take that lightheartedly.

I think that it’s that has meant the world to us, you know, and our clients have been super understanding when we’ve had to message and say, look, could we come tomorrow instead, or could we just change things around this week and have been so incredibly understanding and supportive of us being able to do that? And so that’s we wouldn’t have been able to do that if we had our normal jobs. It wouldn’t have been possible. So yes, we would do it again in a heartbeat.

 

Rhiannon – I think that is a perfect place to end this chat. I’ve got to say, guys, I’m I’m completely in awe, honestly. I mean, firstly, you pick your life and your family up and you move countries. Then. Then you decide to give up two professional wages to, you know, start your own business. And, you know, we’ve had chats before where we’ve sort of dived a little bit even deeper into the why and, and you’re why it just it, it’s incredibly humbling. It’s a really beautiful to you know what you’re really doing this for and I’m in awe

 

Oh, you guys have got great determination. You are just to beautiful souls to top it all off.

And I really, really wish you all of this success. And I know that we’re going to keep walking with you through these awkward phase and you know, whichever direction you intend on taking, I hope that we can be the best possible support to you in in getting you to your own business goals. Thank you. Also you I mean, you’ve also taken an hour out of your day to sit and have a chat with me when you don’t have an hour.

I no new business owner has a spare hour, so yeah man, we’re very busy. She might not, But thank you so much, guys. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you.

 

Mel – No thank you Rhiannon. And it’s been a pleasure having the opportunity even just to share our journey. And,yeah, for anyone else that’s considering this as an opportunity, think it through. But I think if you. Yeah, if you really want change, you have to be willing to make the change. And to take the risks. and if you commit to it, you can make it. Absolutely.

 

Rhiannon – What a perfect final closing message.